The Tao of Joey Essex

TAOISM: a philosophical system evolved by Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, especially its advocacy of a simple and natural life and of non-interference with the course of natural events in order to have a happy existence in harmony with the Tao

TAO: the dynamic principle of life by which all things happen or exist.

I spent some of last night, when I should have been editing my second book (the title of which is currently a work in progress), watching I’m a celebrity Get Me Out of Here. It is a somewhat guilty pleasure for me as I rarely watch TV but my excuse is that I found myself sucked into it when my children began watching the new series and what can I say…I am firmly Team Joey!

Now I have never watched The Only Way is Essex, I don’t read tabloid newspapers and I’m not one for celebrity gossip so my knowledge of Joey Essex came from two sources – his appearances on Celebrity Juice (one of the other rare occasions I watch TV) and my daughter’s occasional stating of the fact that “he’s so pretty!” – it is fair to say that I knew very little about him.

After watching Joey in the jungle for the last few evenings I realised that he reminds me, in a weird way, of Winnie the Pooh. Years ago, Benjamin Hoff wrote a lovely little book called The Tao of Pooh. He had observed that the principles of Taoism were very close to the principles of a certain little bear who lived in the Hundred Acre Woods.

“While Eeyore frets… and Piglet hesitates…and Rabbit calculates…and Owl pontificates…

…Pooh just is”

And this is true, too, of Joey Essex…he simply is. He states the obvious, he has no guile, he is unashamed of the things he doesn’t know, he smiles a lot and looks a little baffled at life and in a rather lovely way he appears to have absolutely no malice in him. Rather a lot like Winnie the Pooh and really, how many other people could claim to not know how to blow their nose as they never learned to do it professionally…with a straight face?

It is because of all of these things that I am cheering on Team Joey to take the jungle crown…he’s a little ray of sunshine…and now on with the more high brow business of editing!